*******The underpreforming benchmark needs to focus on focusing the heart failure readmissions for Mercy Medical Center.****
After reviewing your benchmark evaluation, senior leaders in the organization have asked you to draft a policy change proposal and practice guidelines addressing the benchmark metric for which you advocated action.
In their request, senior leaders have asked for a proposal of not more than 2–4 pages that includes a concise policy description (about one paragraph), practice guidelines, and 3–5 credible references to relevant research, case studies, or best practices that support your analysis and recommendations. You are also expected to be precise, professional, and persuasive in justifying the merit of your proposed actions.
When creating your policy and guidelines it may be helpful to utilize the template that your current care setting or organization uses. Your setting’s risk management or quality department could be a good resource for finding an appropriate template or format. If you are not currently in practice, or your care setting does not have these resources, there are numerous appropriate templates freely available on the Internet.
Note: The tasks outlined below correspond to grading criteria in the scoring guide.
In your proposal, senior leaders have asked that you:
Explain why a change in organizational policy or practice guidelines is needed to address a shortfall in meeting a performance benchmark prescribed by applicable local, state, or federal health care laws or policies.What is the current benchmark for the organization? What is the numeric score for the underperformance?How might the benchmark underperformance be affecting the quality of care being provided or the operations of the organization?What are the potential repercussions of not making any changes?Recommend ethical, evidence-based strategies to resolve the performance issue.What does the evidence-based literature suggest are potential strategies to improve performance for your targeted benchmark?How would these strategies ensure improved performance or compliance with applicable local, state, or federal health care laws or policies?How would you propose to apply these strategies in the context of your chosen professional practice setting?How would you ensure that the application of these strategies is ethical and culturally inclusive?Does your policy encompass the key components of your recommendations?Analyze the potential effects of environmental factors on your recommended strategies.What regulatory considerations could affect your recommended strategies?What organizational resources could affect your recommended strategies (for example, staffing, finances, logistics, and support services)?Are your policy and guidelines realistic in light of existing environmental factors?
Identify colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder groups who should be involved in further development and implementation of your proposed policy, guidelines, and recommended strategies.Why is it important to engage these colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder groups?Do your proposed guidelines help colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder groups understand how to implement your proposed policy?How might engaging these colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder groups result in a better organizational policy and smoother implementation?Are your proposal and recommended strategies realistic, given the care team, unit, or organization you are considering? 5/7/2019
Assessment 2 – NHS-FP6004 – Spring 2019 – Section 01
Details
Attempt 1 Evaluated
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Evaluated
Attempt 3 Samantha
Available Mills
Attempt 2 has been evaluated
Evaluated Assessment File
Includes a link to the scoring guide and any additional faculty feedback.
Overall Comments:
Samantha:
Thank you for your submission of Assessment 2,
attempt 2. I appreciate that you made some
improvements to this attempt. However, you need to
focus on the underperforming benchmark that you
addressed in Assessment 1, attempt 3 which were
heart failure readmissions for Mercy Medical Center. As
the instructions for each assessment state, each
assessment for this course builds on the work that you
did on previous assessments. That is why learners are
encouraged to complete one assessment at a time.
Your first attempt on this assessment was submitted
before you and I talked about Assessment 1.
See my comments in the paper and on the scoring
guide. Please highlight your changes in a different
color. Again, I am happy to discuss my feedback with
you or you can reach out to the tutor for assistance,
especially since this is your second attempt.
Dr. Ryan
I have also commented on your assessment file.
COMPETENCY:
Analyze relevant health care laws and regulations and
their applications and effects on processes within a
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CRITERION:
Propose a succinct policy and guidelines to
enable a team, unit, or the organization as a
whole to implement recommended strategies to
resolve the performance issue related to the
relevant local, state, or federal health care policy
or law.
NON-PERFORMANCE
BASIC
PROFICIENT
DISTINGUISHED
Non-Performance
Does not propose a succinct policy and guidelines to enable a team, unit,
or the organization as a whole to implement recommended strategies to
resolve the performance issue related to the relevant local, state, or
federal health care policy or law.
Faculty Comments:
“
There still is no policy that is clearly proposed.
”
COMPETENCY:
Lead the development and implementation of ethical and
culturally sensitive policies that improve health outcomes
for individuals, organizations, and populations.
CRITERION:
Recommend ethical, evidence-based strategies to
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resolve a performance
issue
related
to health care
policy or law.
NON-PERFORMANCE
BASIC
PROFICIENT
DISTINGUISHED
Basic
Recommends strategies to resolve a performance issue, but the
strategies are either not clearly ethical, not clearly evidence-based, or
seem unlikely to resolve the issue.
Faculty Comments:
“
No specific evidence based strategies to resolve a performance issue is
addressed. This is a general discussion about benchmarks.
”
COMPETENCY:
Evaluate relevant indicators of performance, such as
benchmarks, research, and best practices, for health
care policies and law for patients, organizations, and
populations.
CRITERION:
Explain the need for creating an organizational
policy or practice to address a shortfall in meeting
a prescribed metric benchmark.
NON-PERFORMANCE
BASIC
PROFICIENT
DISTINGUISHED
Basic
Attempts to explain the need for a creating an organizational policy or
practice b t the e planation is imprecise or is not clearl related to a
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Assessment 2 – NHS-FP6004 – Spring 2019 – Section 01
practice, but the explanation is imprecise or is not clearly related to a
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shortfall in meeting a prescribed
metric benchmark.
Faculty Comments:
“
You state that In 2015 a bench mark was conducted at eagle creek
hospital which showed 5% which was above the national readmission rate
also in the same year the COPD was below the readmission rate which
was 4% readmission rate. Pneumonia was the only disease that met both
the federal and local readmission at 30%. However, it is not clear what the
5% was. Please provide sources to support these data.
”
COMPETENCY:
Develop strategies to work collaboratively with policy
makers, stakeholders, and colleagues to address
environmental (governmental and regulatory) forces.
CRITERION:
Analyze the potential effects of environmental
factors on recommended strategies.
NON-PERFORMANCE
BASIC
PROFICIENT
DISTINGUISHED
Basic
Describes the potential effects of environmental factors on recommended
strategies, but fails to analyze them.
Faculty Comments:
“
Lack of resources is the main factor as to why metrics can’t be improved.
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Assessment 2 – NHS-FP6004 – Spring 2019 – Section 01
This includes insufficient or poor trained staff or lack of trained staff makes
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health facilities poor. Also, delay of results from labs and absence of
doctors during nights and weekends. Another challenge that occurs at
eagle creek hospital is lack of funds. This limits their mode of working,
because they have to pay for licenses and private payers to discharge
patients.
”
CRITERION:
Identify colleagues, individual stakeholders, or
stakeholder groups who should be involved in
further development and implementation of
proposed policy, guidelines, and recommended
strategies.
NON-PERFORMANCE
BASIC
PROFICIENT
DISTINGUISHED
Non-Performance
Does not identify colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder
groups who should be involved in further development and
implementation of proposed policy, guidelines, and recommended
strategies.
Faculty Comments:
“
There are still no clearly identified colleagues or stakeholders who should
be involved in the development and implementation of the policy
”
COMPETENCY:
Apply various methods of communicating with policy
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Running head: POLICY CHANGE
1
Policy Change
Samantha Mills
Capella University
NHS-FP5004
05/06/2019
POLICY CHANGE
2
Policy Change
Importance of Benchmarking
It’s always good for any health organization to conduct benchmarking to ensure efficiency
in a health organization. That will help the hospital to keep records of the organization.
Benchmarking will help to improve health organizations to provide better services to the patients
and those who are in need. The importance of benchmarking is to help compare the performance
of both the internal and external sectors. This will help to improve the managers to have
improvements on their various departments hence the members can work effectively and improve
on places of work. This benchmark was conducted both internally and externally. Therefore, this
will help to collect data to help in comparing with other hospitals. Benchmarking will help the
organization to adopt new things other organizations are embracing. Therefore, our organization
through benchmarking will help to align our employees, resources and our internal systems to meet
our main objectives. So, by creating the dashboard one can track the metrics and make proper
adjustments.
The main reason for creating a benchmark policy is to improve the services of the metrics
that are discovered. Hence the Eagle Creek Hospital needed to change its metric on hospital
incidents. This metric helps in measuring the quality of services of the patients is monitored and
taken care of. In that all patients don’t get infections, bed sores and reacting to transfusions.
Therefore, this type of metric helps in monitoring and keeping track data of various patients hence
this improves service delivery. Also benchmarking will help the hospital to decrease the chances
of readmission. For example, in 2015 there was a high number of patients who were readmitted
because they didn’t receive better medication and proper checkup was done before discharging.
POLICY CHANGE
3
Therefore, the rate had increased by 2% from the previous year. Heart failure and diabetes had the
highest number of readmission cases by 28 %. Therefore, nurses and doctor were supposed to
conduct a proper checkup before discharging because other diseases may crop up. The only patient
condition that was meeting both the federal and local readmission rate was pneumonia with a rate
of 30% in 2015 (Ghazisaeidi, 2015).
Through the formation of the performance dashboard, our organization will keep track of
important matters that are affecting the healthcare center. This will help in the most important
issues of the organization to compete locally and nationally. The dashboard will help the company
to improve its service and compete with others internationally. Dashboards play significant roles
in an organization such as it increases your awareness of the variables. When variables are not set
in the database you may lose track because of the number of patients that we serve. Another reason
is that it will reduce variations in that all patients in the facility are able to receive proper care and
able to standardize all the values across the facility. Similarly, they will be able to identify the
trends and patterns in that when data is kept in a central place the organization can easily
interconnect with other departments. Also, the metric will realize the members who are working
and those not doing so hence ensuring accuracy in the company. Therefore, by creating the
dashboard system, we can easily get reliable data which help the managers to achieve their goals
(Jiménez-López, Roales-Nieto, Seco, & Preciado, 2016).
This will greatly improve on the services and achieve its main goal. Changes must be done
in order to rectify the previous mistake that was done to ensure system delivery. Therefore, better
adjustments must be done in the system to correct the mistakes. Hence the company managers try
to make changes that happened previously and improve their services. Performance of the hospital
was to be achieved through standardization and equality. Therefore, the patient care should be the
POLICY CHANGE
4
same across the facility for all the patients to enjoy. Hence by not making any changes in the
system is going to delay the system delivery of the hospital because they will not have patients to
attend to. This paper is going to analyze benchmarking strategies and the various ways of keeping
track of different metrics in the hospital. Also, it discusses the various ways to resolve the detected
underperformance benchmarks.
Benchmarking challenges
Metrics are expected in any organization during the benchmark process. To ensure the
process is well set you must ensure to identify problem before working finding a solution. The
main problems that happen in healthcare organization are age, cultural diversity and lack of proper
documentation. Therefore, once the problems have been identified proper solutions have to be set
in the facility. In order to improve the health challenges, you have to have resources. Lack of
resources is the main factor as to why metrics can’t be improved. This includes insufficient or poor
trained staff or lack of trained staff makes health facilities poor. Also, delay of results from labs
and absence of doctors during nights and weekends. Another challenge that occurs at eagle creek
hospital is lack of funds. This limits their mode of working, because they have to pay for licenses
and private payers to discharge patients.
Therefore, for the readmission errors to be minimized in Mercy eagle creek hospital its
necessary for the hospital to employ qualified health personnel and train them in all changes in
health status. Also, the hospital should enroll on regulatory incentives that aim to minimize
hospital admissions by redefining many of its rules that may be contributing to readmission errors.
Ethical, Evidence-Based Strategies
POLICY CHANGE
5
In order to improve the performance in a health organization, cultural diversity and age
must improve so as to have better services in hospitals. Hence cultural diversity happens to be the
most primary factor that must be implemented in any organization. Therefore, in order to improve
the healthcare services of the facility, we must find amicable solutions to ethical values. For
example, Eagle creek hospital facility should improve in supporting nurse ethics. This will help
the nurses to follow the rules and regulations of the nurse code of ethics. Hospitals should
incorporate behavior as the first thing before being employed. Similarly, a unit based on ethics is
to be included in that, nurses should at least learn the importance of being ethical. To achieve this,
the hospital should employ mentors who could help in teaching their colleagues on the importance
of ethics (Dowding et al., 2015).
Ethical strategies will help the health organization to find good solutions that will help the
organization to grow. Hence the staff employed must have good skills in handling patients.
Therefore, plan must be set which will ensure the services have improved despite any cultural
diversity. Equally, cultural competence must be addressed to improve the ethical goals.
Environmental Strategies to Improve Health Sector
The facility should incorporate the environmental factors that will help the hospital to offer
better services to the community. Eagle Creek Hospital’s main goal is to offer safety and quality
to its patients. Environmental factors should be considered in order to improve the health sector.
For example, when the environment got limited access of clean water and sanitation it increases
the chances of having patients with waterborne and diarrhea diseases. By having this problem it’s
going to hinder the hospital services hence the patients will be in danger. In this case the hospital,
community and the hospital should find a solution to the problem.
POLICY CHANGE
6
Managers, nurses, doctors and the government should be all included in implementing the
policies so as to improve in the health. sectors. By this every sector is supposed to contribute in
various ways so as to improve the health services in eagle creek hospital. Thus, Eagle Creek
Hospital has greatly incorporated with other local hospitals and local governments, so they have
shared responsibility to achieve goals as far as health issues are concerned. The local governments
are in charge of funding initiates that have been started by the hospital so as to help patients from
the surrounding. The local government should aid and provide that will help patients to get better
medical services (Shamian, 2016). After all those bodies working together they can be able to
achieve goals concerning the health sector. Also, in order to achieve better goals, other hospitals
should be included during the benchmarking process.
Conclusion
In conclusion, benchmarking is a critical thing to conduct hence it needs a lot of attention
and time. Benchmarking at eagle creek hospital have ensured health standard have improved.
Therefore, by doing all that will ensure all services in Eagle creek hospital have greatly improved.
Although the hospital has been performing well the changes must be done and incorporated
according to the benchmarking done. So, by eliminating the failures and errors, the facility can
achieve its targeted goal and objectives.
POLICY CHANGE
7
References
Dowding, D., Randell, R., Gardner, P., Fitzpatrick, G., Dykes, P., Favela, J., … & Currie, L.
(2015). Dashboards for improving patient care: review of the literature. International
journal of medical informatics, 84(2), 87-100.
Ghazisaeidi, M., Safdari, R., Torabi, M., Mirzaee, M., Farzi, J., & Goodini, A. (2015).
Development of performance dashboards in healthcare sector: key practical issues. Acta
Informatica Medica, 23(5), 317.
Shamian, J., Kerr, M. S., Laschinger, H. K. S., & Thomson, D. (2016). A hospital-level analysis
of the work environment and workforce health indicators for registered nurses in
Ontario’s acute-care hospitals. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research Archive, 33(4).
Overview
Draft a written proposal and implementation guidelines for an organizational policy that you
believe would help lead to an improvement in quality and performance associated with the
benchmark metric for which you advocated action in Assessment 1.
Note: Each assessment in this course builds on the work you completed in the previous
assessment. Therefore, you must complete the assessments in this course in the order in which
they are presented.
In advocating for institutional policy changes related to local, state, or federal health care laws or
policies, health leaders must be able to develop and present clear and well-written policy and
practice guidelines change proposals that will enable a team, unit, or the organization as a
whole to resolve relevant performance issues and bring about improvements in the quality and
safety of health care. This assessment offers you an opportunity to take the lead in proposing
such changes.
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the
following course competencies and assessment criteria:
•
•
•
•
•
Competency 2: Analyze relevant health care laws and regulations and their applications and
effects on processes within a health care team or organization.
• Propose a succinct policy and guidelines to enable a team, unit, or the
organization as a whole to implement recommended strategies to resolve
the performance issue related to the relevant local, state, or federal health
care policy or law.
Competency 3: Lead the development and implementation of ethical and culturally sensitive
policies that improve health outcomes for individuals, organizations, and populations.
• Recommend ethical, evidence-based strategies to resolve a performance
issue related to health care policy or law.
Competency 4: Evaluate relevant indicators of performance, such as benchmarks, research,
and best practices, for health care policies and law for patients, organizations, and populations.
• Explain the need for creating an organizational policy or practice to
address a shortfall in meeting a prescribed metric benchmark.
Competency 5: Develop strategies to work collaboratively with policy makers, stakeholders, and
colleagues to address environmental (governmental and regulatory) forces.
• Analyze the potential effects of environmental factors on recommended
strategies.
• Identify colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder groups who
should be involved in further development and implementation of
proposed policy, guidelines, and recommended strategies.
Competency 6: Apply various methods of communicating with policy makers, stakeholders,
colleagues, and patients to ensure that communication in a given situation is professional, clear,
efficient, and effective.
• Communicate a proposed policy, guidelines, and recommended
strategies in a professional and persuasive manner, writing content
clearly and logically, with correct use of grammar, punctuation, and
spelling.
• Support arguments effectively with relevant sources, correctly
formatting citations and references using current APA style.
n this assessment, you will build on the dashboard benchmark evaluation work you completed in
Assessment 1.
PREPARATION
After reviewing your benchmark evaluation, senior leaders in the organization have asked you to
draft a policy change proposal and practice guidelines addressing the benchmark metric for which
you advocated action.
In their request, senior leaders have asked for a proposal of not more than 2–4 pages that includes a
concise policy description (about one paragraph), practice guidelines, and 3–5 credible references to
relevant research, case studies, or best practices that support your analysis and recommendations.
You are also expected to be precise, professional, and persuasive in justifying the merit of your
proposed actions.
When creating your policy and guidelines it may be helpful to utilize the template that your current
care setting or organization uses. Your setting’s risk management or quality department could be a
good resource for finding an appropriate template or format. If you are not currently in practice, or
your care setting does not have these resources, there are numerous appropriate templates freely
available on the Internet.
PROPOSAL REQUIREMENTS
Note: The tasks outlined below correspond to grading criteria in the scoring guide.
In your proposal, senior leaders have asked that you:
•
•
•
Explain why a change in organizational policy or practice guidelines is needed to address a
shortfall in meeting a performance benchmark prescribed by applicable local, state, or
federal health care laws or policies.
o What is the current benchmark for the organization? What is the numeric score for
the underperformance?
o How might the benchmark underperformance be affecting the quality of care being
provided or the operations of the organization?
o What are the potential repercussions of not making any changes?
Recommend ethical, evidence-based strategies to resolve the performance issue.
o What does the evidence-based literature suggest are potential strategies to improve
performance for your targeted benchmark?
o How would these strategies ensure improved performance or compliance with
applicable local, state, or federal health care laws or policies?
o How would you propose to apply these strategies in the context of your chosen
professional practice setting?
o How would you ensure that the application of these strategies is ethical and culturally
inclusive?
o Does your policy encompass the key components of your recommendations?
Analyze the potential effects of environmental factors on your recommended strategies.
o What regulatory considerations could affect your recommended strategies?
o
•
•
•
•
What organizational resources could affect your recommended strategies (for
example, staffing, finances, logistics, and support services)?
o Are your policy and guidelines realistic in light of existing environmental factors?
Propose a succinct policy and guidelines to enable a team, unit, or the organization as a
whole to implement recommended strategies to resolve the performance issue related to the
relevant local, state, or federal health care policy or law.
Identify colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder groups who should be involved in
further development and implementation of your proposed policy, guidelines, and
recommended strategies.
o Why is it important to engage these colleagues, individual stakeholders, or
stakeholder groups?
o Do your proposed guidelines help colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder
groups understand how to implement your proposed policy?
o How might engaging these colleagues, individual stakeholders, or stakeholder
groups result in a better organizational policy and smoother implementation?
o Are your proposal and recommended strategies realistic, given the care team, unit,
or organization you are considering?
Communicate your proposed policy, guidelines, and recommended strategies in a
professional and persuasive manner.
o Write clearly and logically, using correct grammar, punctuation, and mechanics.
Integrate relevant sources to support your arguments, correctly formatting source citations
and references using current APA style.
o Did you cite an additional 3–5 credible sources to support your analysis and
recommendations?
Questions to Consider
As you prepare to complete this assessment, you may want to think about other related issues
to deepen your understanding or broaden your viewpoint. You are encouraged to consider the
questions below and discuss them with a fellow learner, a work associate, an interested friend,
or a member of your professional community. Note that these questions are for your own
development and exploration and do not need to be completed or submitted as part of your
assessment.
Consider the underperforming metric you evaluated in your Dashboard Benchmark Evaluation
in Assessment 1 as having the potential to greatly improve the overall quality or performance of
a team or the whole organization.
What ethical, evidence-based strategies would you recommend to resolve the performance
issue related to the underperforming metric you evaluated?
•
•
•
•
What does the literature suggest are potential strategies to improve performance for your
targeted benchmark?
How would these strategies ensure improvement or compliance with the relevant local, state, or
federal health care policy or law?
How would you propose to apply these strategies in the context of Eagle Creek Hospital or your
own practice setting?
How would you ensure that these strategies are ethical and culturally inclusive in their
application?
Running head: DASHBOARD BENCHMARK EVALUATION
1
Dashboard Benchmark Evaluation
Samantha Mills
Capella University
NHS-FP6004
04/30/2019
1
DASHBOARD BENCHMARK EVALUATION
2
Evaluation of the Dashboard and the Healthcare
Benchmarking is essential in health care organization. According to Blouin(2017),
benchmarking helps in improving health care services. The primary role of the benchmarks is
that they provide visual interpretations and plans on how the organizations would enhance their
services and facilities. The benchmarking standards used by Mercy Medical Center evaluates
problems to do with admission,errors, public health, patient safety, and demographics. If these
standards are met, then it means patients will receive the best care possible. Thus saving hospital
finances.As shown in the initail research Mercy Medical Center does not meet the normal
readmission rates in all patient entry points. In 2016 the heart failure local readmission rate for
Mercy Medical Center was 3% above the national readmission rate of 37%.On the other side, the
local readmission rate for COPD in the same year was below the national readmission rate.It
indicated 4% which shows a 3% below the national readmission rate. The only patient condition
that was meeting both the federal and local readmission rate was pneumonia with a rate of 29%
in 2016 (Blouin, 2017).
According to Blouin (2017), a performance dashboard is described as a layered system
of data delivery system, which is presented in a single screen, while at the same time providing
the most critical information. Through the performance dashboard, the organizations can
formulate strategic objectives about their facilities. With this, the managers can quickly identify,
measure, monitor, and then manage their performance more effectively. The end product of this
is that there would be an effective system of management that has accumulated knowledge from
different aspects, hence incorporating them into their system.
Professionals in healthcare uses benchmarking metrics to improve their facilities. An
excellent example of this are Mercy Medical Center. The organization critically makes use of the
DASHBOARD BENCHMARK EVALUATION
3
benchmarks, whose purpose is to evaluate the errors, the demographics, readmission, and patient
safety (Exchange, 2018). By getting this knowledge as instructed at Mercy Medical Center, it
would be able to come up with an even more enhanced organization than before. The
benchmarks are equally to be compared at both the national levels and the local levels.
It should be noted that for healthcare organizations to enhance efficiency in service
delivery, they should strive to ensure that they compete both locally and nationally. It is
impossible for an organization to improve efficiency if they keep their levels down at the local
levels alone (Blouin, 2017). This paper analyses the benchmarks metrics of the Chief Executive
Officer (CEO) dashboards at the Mercy Medical Center. The evaluation also includes the
challenges involved in the same and the underperformance that has been witnessed over a long
period. Above all, the report tries to highlight strategies on how such issues could be addressed
adequately.
Benchmarks as Structured by the Local, State, or the Federal Healthcare Policies
The Joint Commission stipulates that the primary roles of the dashboards are to focus
more on the quality and safety, while at the same time documenting the risk management trends,
and the severe safety events within the facility (Exchange, 2018). The risk management trends
and patterns should be given among the priorities given that most of the work within the facility
touches on the safety of the patients. Patient security prioritization is important. Other factors
that the dashboard should address include the staffing issue and critically, the quality of services
offered by the organization (Health, 2018).
At Mercy Medical Center, the organization has come up with meaningful metrics that
ensure the organization has met all the highlighted factors, from patient’s safety to the quality of
DASHBOARD BENCHMARK EVALUATION
4
healthcare that is provided. According to Mercy Medical Center, quality is the most critical thing
when it comes to patient care. If a facility were not able to take care of the condition that they
offer, at the end of it, they would have failed the patients as far as matters of healthcare are
concerned. In this regard, Mercy Medical Center saw the need to develop a benchmark that
critically illustrated to show both the local and national readmission rates for COPD, heart
failure, and pneumonia (Ghazisaeidi et al., 2015).
The organization is keen on establishing and analyzing the failures within its setting,
medication errors, documentation errors, and the patient injuries that had not been addressed
before. It is arguably correct that with this in place, it becomes elementary to deal with the
mistakes and rectify them. According to Blouin (2017), Minnesota’s Local Public Health Act
stipulates that the local government and the state are responsible for dealing with health care
issues both the state and local government needs to come up with better ways that would enhance
service delivery at the healthcare centers. With that in place, they would have developed better
means of providing even better services to their patients. The local government and the state are
both responsible for coming up with accountability schemes for the funding of initiatives,
developing, and initiating guidelines that would aid in assessing and planning of appropriate
healthcare within the state (Dreachslin et al., 2017). They should also come up with means that
would develop documented progress towards the achievement of statewide objectives and goals.
After all, these are done, the two should come up with an assigned oversight body to commission
the healthcare system within the state or the entire country.
Benchmarking Challenges
In any given organization metrics, it is expected that several challenges may occur. The
three primary problems that are expected within the setting of an organization include age
DASHBOARD BENCHMARK EVALUATION
5
diversity, cultural diversity, and proper documentation (Exchange, 2018). Although such
challenges could be solved easily with the best measures being put in place, the first step should
always be its identification. Once the problems have been identified within the setting of a
healthcare facility, there should be a means to ensure that everything goes in the right direction.
The main challenge in improving errrors in readmission is lack of resources.This includes
insufficient or poorly trained staff;an absence of medical personnel,especially on nights and
wekends;and delays in test results,either from in-house or out labs.Another challenge Mercy
Medical Centre is limited in the care allowed to provideby the terms of heir licence. For
instancethe tremendous financial pressure from Medicare and privat payers to discharge patients
sooner. Additionally as a result,the hospital cares for higher-acuity and more medically complex
patients. Therefore, health proffessional needs to receive additional training necessary to provide
and recognize changes in health status and communicate those changes.Another chalenge is
pervarse financial and regulatory incentives. Despite the new readmission penalties the
healthcare payment system remains field with incentives that encourage hospitalizatio.For
example, Medicare oftem pays physicians more mony when a patient is in the hsopital.This
makes physicians to do multiple patients bookings anad hospitalizations of the patients in the
same hospital to perform more billable procedures.
Therefore, for the readmission errors to be minimized in Mercy Medical Centre its
necessary for the hospital to employ qualified health personnel and train them in all changes in
health status. Also, the hospital should enroll on regulatory incentives that aim to minimize
hospital admissions by redefining many of its rules that may be contributing to readmission
errors.
DASHBOARD BENCHMARK EVALUATION
6
The demographics of the county where the medical center is situated contributes highly to the
challenges that the healthcare facility faces (Dreachslin et al., 2017). Located in Scott County
Minnesota, Mercy Medical Center has consequently been facing several challenges which in one
way or the other they try to address. As of 2018, the county had a population of 159,678, out of
the total population of the state which is 5,457,173 (Rutherford et al., 2017). It should be noted
that this is one of the counties in the United States where racial diversity is not much felt.
The entire population is made up of 82.9% of non-Hispanic white people. Additionally,
285 of the whole community are below the age of 18 (Dreachslin et al., 2017). The
demographics of the county, which includes the size and the total population have in one way, or
the other contributed to the challenges faced by the county facility. Staffing i/s also another issue
that should be observed keenly by both the state and local government.
Benchmarking and Underperformance
Within the documentation, it is apparent that the facility has great potential to be
improved. As per the documentation made, specific significant changes were made to enhance
the number of errors that had occurred previously (Exchange, 2018). To rectify or adjust the kind
of failures experienced earlier on, it was necessary that individuals try to analyze and look for a
way to make changes. According to Dreachslin et al., (2017) within the departments of Bariatric
and Orthopedic services, the number of failures significantly increased between 2016 and 2017.
However, the underperformance can be solved if the management came up with standard
measures that seek to upgrade the facility. The benchmark could be improved by planning and
implementing it with internal data mentioned above to minimize the errors on readmission. The
existing data should equally be analyzed in the best way possible to come up with the best results
(Blouin, 2017). To achieve a hospital-wide patient flow, there should be an ultimate
DASHBOARD BENCHMARK EVALUATION
7
improvement in the patient care experience at the hospital. This requires the hospital’s
appreciation as an interdependent and interconnected system of care.
Ethical Actions for Improvement of the Benchmark Underperformance
To improve the cultural and age diversity, some of the most critical factors required
includes improving the underperformance. As highlighted, the variety of the county is a primary
factor that contributes to the challenges that face the healthcare facility. It means that to solve
such issues, the management should look at the solution from the scope of the diversity of the
county. Items such as staffing are to be addressed to come up with amicable solutions over the
same. Equally, there should be action plan implemented that would ensure more diversity has
been improved to the best levels, while at the same time enhancing cultural competence within
the setting of the organization (Blouin, 2017). The best way to address the issue of diversity is
improving a different kind of training to the workers, aimed at bringing awareness over the same.
Additionally, expanding the market and the outreach of the community would be a great way of
dealing with the challenge of age diversity and cultural underperformance within the setting of
the organization.
Conclusion
The benchmarks evaluations at Mercy Medical Center have not only been effective but
efficient in ensuring that the standards of the health organization have been improved. By
following most of the recommendations provided by the benchmark, it would be easier to come
up with an effective plan over the same. Although the medical center has been performing well
according to the parameter, certain things need to be affected to make it even more efficient. By
DASHBOARD BENCHMARK EVALUATION
8
eliminating the errors and failures as addressed by the benchmark, the hospital would have
developed much capacity as far as the performance is concerned.
DASHBOARD BENCHMARK EVALUATION
9
References
Blouin, A. S. (2017). High reliability healthcare. Retrieved from The Joint Commission:
https://www.jointcommission.org/leadership_blog/how_engaged_is_your_board/
Dreachslin, J., Weech-Maldonado, R., Jordan, L., Gail, J., &Epané, J. P. (2017). Blueprint for
sustainable change in diversity management and cultural competence: Lessons from the National
Center for Healthcare Leadership diversity demonstration project. Journal of Healthcare
Management, 62(3), 171-185.
Exchange., T. B. (2018). What is benchmarking? Retrieved from The Benchmarking Exchange:
http://www.benchnet.com/wib.htm
Ghazisaeidi, M., Safdari, R., Torabi, M., Mirzaee, M., Farzi, J., &Goodini, A. (2015). Development of
Health, M. D. (2018). Local Public Health act Minnesota Department of Health: Retrived from
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/opi/gov/lphact/
performance dashboards in the healthcare sector: key practical issues. ActaInformaticaMedica, 23(5),
317.
Rutherford, P. A., Provost, L. P., Kotagal, U. R., Luther, K., & Anderson, A. (2017). Achieving hospitalwide patient flow. IHI White Paper. Cambridge: Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Retrieved
from http://www.ihi.org/resources/Pages/IHIWhitePapers/Achieving-Hospital-widePatient-Flow.aspx
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